[sclug] [bristol] OT: Two weeks with the HTC Hero and Android OS

[Alex Butcher]

On Mon, 15 Feb 2010, Ashley Pittman wrote:

>
> On 12 Feb 2010, at 20:44, Keith Edmunds wrote:
>
>> Alex has given a comprehensive review of the features (and misfeatures:
>> yes, camera, I'm looking at you) of the HTC Hero. I've been using one for
>> around three months and overall I'm very impressed. I can't really add
>> to his review other than to mention some applications I find very useful
>> (in addition to the one's Alex mentioned).
>
> A decent Camera app wouldn't go amis, the camera is supposed to be OK but
> with close to two seconds shutter lag it's impossible to shoot anything!

I'm not quite sure where the limitation lies; with the hardware, the OS, or
the applications. Try PRO Paint Camera from the Market.

>> Last.fm - if that's your bag:
>> http://uk.androlib.com/android.application.fm-last-android-jwmx.aspx
>
> Tried it, decided I didn't like the fact that it started up and did stuff
> whenever I played a music file.  I wasn't entirely comfortable with it
> communicating every time I hit play....

That (the 'Scrobbling') is very much the point of of last.fm. It uses your
playing behaviour to make recommendations.

> 3Banana is a notepad app I use as a todo list and share notes between my
> phone and my laptop.

I use 'Notes' instead.

> CallLocation flashes up a window when somebody phones me telling me where
> they are located, it's based on the phone number so can get UK towns or UK
> mobile but really comes into it's own for international calls.

Nice tip!

> Handcent SMS is the #1 must have though, mostly because the built in SMS
> app is so poor.  Install Hand Cent, disable the notifications on the
> default app (unfortunately you can't uninstall it - neither can you
> uninstall any of the twitter apps) and just use this for sending and
> receiving text messages.

I like Handcent's look, but Chomp SMS seems to be the winner in terms of
functionality in my signal-impaired home/Faraday cage.

> Ashley,

Best Regards,
Alex